Wednesday

Nearly 290 respondents to a recent survey reported they did not have enough money for rent/mortgage/real estate taxes at some point during the last 12 months.

MIDDLETOWN — Town Council President Robert Sylvia has asked town staff for an update on how the town will achieve its long-sought goal of creating municipal affordable senior housing units.

Sylvia included an agenda item for the Feb. 4 council meeting seeking an update from Town Administrator Shawn Brown. The panel voted to continue the matter to its next meeting this coming Tuesday because Sylvia was absent from the Feb. 4 meeting.

In his memo to the council, Sylvia asked to “discuss what current options are available and possibly decide on a direction to move forward to honor our commitment to our seniors.”

Sylvia stressed the town must act now. “You can overanalyze stuff and never get anywhere,” he said. “Set the plan, set the route and get it done.”

The councilors “will discuss how they would like to proceed” at Tuesday’s meeting, Brown wrote in an email to The Daily News.

A related item on the agenda for Tuesday's meeting is a resolution to award a contract for a consultant to complete a "senior affordable housing feasibility study." Two companies responded to the request for proposals for the contract: Kirk & Co. Inc. of Boston and FJS Associates of Newport. Town staff recommends that the council award the project to Kirk & Co., which submitted the lowest bid of $22,500.

For years, the town has mulled ways of creating affordable senior housing units, said Councilman Dennis Turano, who is the chairman of the Middletown Senior Housing Committee, a subgroup of the Town Council. Unlike other municipalities, including Newport and Portsmouth, Middletown doesn’t have a housing authority.

Turano said his committee met two or three times and supported retaining a consultant to perform a feasibility study. In addition to deciding where affordable senior units should go, the council must decide whether the town or a nonprofit it creates would operate them, he explained.

He called the process of securing affordable senior housing units a "marathon, not a sprint."

The need for such housing will be more acutely felt as the baby boomer generation ages.

“America’s older populations are in the midst of unprecedented growth,” said Arleen Kaull, the executive director of the town’s senior center, while she presented the results of a senior survey during a Town Council meeting last month. “With the aging of the baby boomer generation … and increased longevity, America’s older population is being reshaped.”

Of the 924 survey respondents aged 55 and older, 88 percent said there is a need for affordable senior housing in Middletown, and 45 percent said they would live in such units if they were available.

Nearly 290 respondents reported that they did not have enough money for rent, mortgage or real estate taxes at some point during the past 12 months.

Properties previously eyed for possible development of senior housing units include the former Berkeley-Peckham School next to the senior center, the Oliphant school administration building, Linden Park near One Mile Corner and the former Kennedy School on West Main Road.

Turano noted that affordable senior housing was a much-discussed topic leading up to the November election.

At the council swearing-in ceremony after the election, Sylvia noted the council would address affordable senior housing in the current two-year term. The audience greeted the remark with applause.

“It’s just something that needs to be focused on and it’s part of our community plan,” Turano said Tuesday. “We invest in a lot of things. I just think we need to [invest] in our aging community members. And this is a step in the right direction.”

dgomes@newportri.com

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